


Dreams of Death

by Melethril



Series: Harry Potter and the Heart of Sword [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Rurouni Kenshin
Genre: And Magic!, Gen, Hiko needs something against his constant headache, Kenshin Needs a Hug, Poor Kenshin, Swords, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 09:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18206876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melethril/pseuds/Melethril
Summary: Hiko Seijuro, thirteenth master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu and Supreme Warlock of Japanese Wizarding Society, believed his Baka Deshi was given a clean slate.He was not.Even Hiko Seijuro was not perfect.Only very close to it.





	Dreams of Death

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I don't know what the hell I was thinking with this. I blame Vathara, though, and her version of Kenshin Himura (which is absolutely brilliant and you should read her stories). 
> 
> I can't blame anyone but myself for throwing Rowling's world into the mix....
> 
>  
> 
> Just so you have an approximate idea regarding timeline (TWT): 
> 
> HP verse: AU after GoF  
> RK verse: VERY AU after the end of the manga (the anime until the end of season 2; includes the OAV “Trust and Betrayal”, ignores the OAV Reflections)

“ _Baka deshi_!” the thirteenth master of _Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu_ exclaimed exasperatedly when his apprentice’s volatile mind had once again been adrift causing Kenshin to be thrown back several feet. Had he been any less than exceptionally skilled he would no longer have an apprentice.

Not as if that would be an irreplaceable loss.

“Where is your head? If you can’t focus, we might as well stop your training altogether. I won’t waste my precious time on the clumsy idiot you’ve obviously decided to remain.”

“ _Gomen nasai_ ,” the boy – no, the young man – said quietly, avoiding eye contact to his _shishou_ , which made Hiko instantly suspicious. It was not like this boy to leave a comment like this unchallenged. He usually had a defiant, vaguely amusing and quick retort on his lips.

“Go, I’m expecting dinner in an hour.”

When the redhead left without the slightest objection, Hiko was sure that something was desperately wrong. He followed the small frame just to be assured that the fool did not do anything unusually stupid. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary when his pupil grabbed a bowl to get water from the lake, apart from the fact he did it without making a fuss.

Kenshin filled the bowl and set it aside before washing his hands in the lake. While strange, the sword master did not perceive this to be distressing. However, something in the young man’s _Ki_ shifted as he continued rubbing his hands.

Hiko narrowed his eyes when something dark and amber started to coil around the slim figure.

‘ _By all the powers in the world, you wouldn’t...’_

The tall man’s thoughts stopped when his pupil’s hands started to redden due to the vicious cleansing of their owner.

“Kenshin,” he implored firmly to bring the boy back from whatever trance he was in, but his words fell on deaf ears. “Kenshin!” he shouted sharply in a voice that brooked no room for refusal.

“I can’t get rid of it. My hands are covered in it, I can’t...” the young man whispered frantically as he scrubbed his hands so harshly they started to bleed, causing the redhead to scrub more viciously.

“What the...” the tall man quickly stepped forward and grabbed the boy’s shoulder who flinched violently, his right hand flying to his sword faster than eyes could observe. “Kenshin!”

“Shishou, I... I...” wide, violet, _terrified_ eyes looked at him.

“What are you doing, _baka_? Cease this foolishness right now!”

“I... There was blood on my hands... they were tainted by it. I can taste it, _shishou_... More and more often when I eat, everything tastes like blood.”

Without meaning to, Hiko Seijuro took a step back. Kenshin’s words kept repeating in his ears, only the voice that spoke was older, wiser... and broken.

 _‘No... No!’_ the sword master wanted to scream. No, the boy did not deserve this. He was given a clean slate. He should be allowed to live his life without the demons of the past.

“Is there anything else?”

“I don’t know, _shishou_ ,” the redhead whispered desolately. “I’ve been dreaming of shadows and endless, bright nights full of death... and blood and clashing swords. There is a girl with sad eyes and she says again and again that I’m the one that makes the rain bleed. Whatis this, _shishou_? What is wrong with me?”

With a sigh, Hiko sat down next to his desperate student. There was no way around this, no use trying to evade a conversation he had hoped to be unnecessary.

“Eight years ago,” he began, “I found you.”

There was no need to elaborate. The boy remembered. Only his _deshi_ would get in trouble with the Yakuza so quickly. In the hands of slavers, an international ring for slave-trade this time around. Once again, three women protected him as if history was intent on repeating itself.

He had not meant to take him in. Not after what happened the first time.

“More than a century ago I found another one just like you. I, Hiko Seijuro, thirteenth master of _Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu_ and Supreme Warlock of Japanese Wizarding Society, took him in. Like you, he was no wizard, but I decided not to tell him anything about magic. There was great strength in him, though, a thirst for life that I considered adequate to learn the secrets of this ancient sword style. However, as I trained him, Japan walked the edge of the blade between destroying itself and creating a new area: the era of the Tokugawa regime was coming to an end. My pupil decided, against my will and wishes, to join the _ishin shishi_ hoping to change a cruel world for the better. In the end, he became the sword and pawn of Katsura...” Old anger was like acid in his veins. Anger at his idiotic pupil and fury at himself for his failure to make the foolish boy see... But then, did he want to know what would have happened to this country without the Battousai? The madness that tore Japan apart during World War II had been unspeakable.

He remembered an old, exhausted voice whispering.

‘ _Is this what we bled for,_ shishou? _So many gave their lives, countless lives, on both sides... We wanted to create a better country. Are we now reaping what we sowed?”_

He had not known. He had been able to answer. Ultimately, he knew that no matter how horrible some of his former pupil’s actions were, the world would be a lesser place without the Battousai. And yet he cursed the amber-eyed alter ego, which had torn Kenshin’s soul apart.

The boy who was now sitting before him was by no means as tired; his eyes were wide open and curious, but Hiko saw the shadows of the past lurking in those eyes. The powers of the world were unwilling to give this soul the rest it deserved.

“He survived the Bakumatsu and lived to greet the Meiji era. He found peace despite it all and vowed never to kill again. He found friends, even among those he’d once fought to death.” Saito’s death had grieved Kenshin deeply. Losing the only man who truly understood the madness of Kyoto had left a wound unable to heal, no matter how well he tried to hide it. “One day, coming back from an errand to the market, he found everybody slaughtered. It was murder orchestrated and authorised by the government he had once helped gain power. His wife, sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.” Yahiko had been his son in all but blood. “His friends... all dead.” _Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu_ was able to fight off most modern weapons, and evade the rest. Kamiya Kasshin... was not, the sword that gives life may have fit into the peaceful era of Meiji, but not in a world of weapons dealing a cold kill at a distance. Kenji may have learned some aspects of their style, but he never became a master. “His son looked just like him and the fools thought they managed to kill the _demon of the revolution_.”

Ultimately, they had, by killing those he loved, they killed Kenshin, but they did not live to tell the tale.

Broken and tired of life, an old man dragged himself up this mountain, to tell what happened... and to say goodbye. He lived only three more days, aging before Hiko’s very eyes, as if the spell promising youth not only to him but those he loved was broken.

“I thought his soul could finally rest, but eight years ago, I found you. Everything about the two of you from the way I found you to your very _Ki_ was near-identical.” Kenji, though in looks like his father, did not have the same _Ki_ signature. Prone to mischief like Kenshin, he often tried to fool Hiko, but he never succeeded. “A soul reborn. It doesn’t happen often, but then I thought the powers may have granted my old pupil, granted _you,_ a new life, one without pain. It is clear now however that they have no intention of being kind.”

The day he died he would have a long talk with those who toyed with his _baka deshi_ not only in one life but two. As soon as he knew what was in for Kenshin this time.

“I took you in.”

Though not without protest and a lot of cursing at the sky. He did not _want_ another pupil. He did not want _this_ pupil.

And yet, what other name could he give this boy but Kenshin Himura? That was who he was, even if he had never meant for the child to know. This time however, the boy would learn _everything_. He was not a wizard, but he _was_ adept in terms of magic. Not particularly powerful, perhaps, but enough to learn the basics.

Wherever the magic came from.

Hiko had his suspicions and usually, his guesses were correct.

But this was not for the boy to know.

“But...” the boy said in a low voice. “How?”

If only he knew.

“Make dinner!”

“ _Shishou_!”

Finally, some of the boy’s spark was back.

* * *

_Blood. Shadows. Pain. Running across rooftops. Blades clashing._

_‘Please step back, Okita-kun. I, Saitou Hajime, captain of the 3 rd_Shinsengumi _unit, will kill the_ hitokiri _Battousai.’_

_Only in your dreams, Saitou..._

_Snow. The world turning dark, deaf and blind. Tomoe._

_‘You, you are the one that makes the rain bleed.’_

_Heavenly justice. Black letters. Names. Countless names._

* * *

“Kenshin?”

The birds were singing, the sun was rising, the air was clear. Far too early for his student to be up and ready already. However, he was getting water from the stream, his head was bowed. There was something foreign in the way he sat there, but Hiko could not put his finger on it. The boy’s night had been restless.

The air was tense and the teenager turned his head.

Ancient eyes looked at the thirteenth master of _Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu_.

He had not known these dangerous, furious, amber-coloured eyes could also look haunted.

“’ _The weight of a sword that stole a life will drag you down to hell,’_ ” Battousai whispered, but every word cut like the sword by his side. “Those who carry a _hitokiri’s_ sword reach the deepest places of hell... So deep, it spits you out on the other side.”

“Is that what you believe?” Hiko asked, unafraid. He had never been afraid of his pupil; he would not start now.

“I don’t know,” the former _hitokiri_ answered slowly, thoughtfully. “I don’t remember much. I remember their names... Kaoru, Yahiko, Megumi, Sanoske... Kenji. I remember Shishio Makoto, Soujiro the Tenken, Aoshi...But then he became a friend, didn’t he? Like Saitou.” Saitou’s name was not spoken with the soft intonation one reserved for a friend but the cold steel and respect reserved for a worthy opponent. “I know that I once knew them, but the only thing I _remember_ is the revolution.”

“What will you do?”

“I vowed to _live_ as you once helped me remember _._ I won’t break my oath. Seijuro Hiko, can _you_ live with the embodiment of what your pupil became after defying your wishes?”

True. Now that he said it, he never truly met the Battousai; a worn-out rurouni haunted by his past, an ancient soul ready to die, yes, but not the most feared _hitokiri_ that ever lived.

But then, this was Kenshin. Even if he did not remember, he proved again and again, that even Battousai never betrayed his teachings. He had simply been too young to know better.

Thirteen...

He would always curse Kogoro Katsura to all hells and back for this.

Not Kenshin though.

Not for a very long time.

“Don’t forget to make breakfast,” he turned his back on the redhead.

“ _Shishou_!”

Hiko grinned. Battousai or not, this was his _baka deshi._

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to my favorite queens of crossovers: Vathara and Kryal. However, they are not at fault for the craziness I started here, they just inspired it. They are great at spreading plot bunnies.


End file.
